Explore Quotes by Boris Johnson

We were told by President Obama that in respect of international trade, we would have to get to the back of the queue - not a position that America normally requires the United Kingdom to be in when it comes to other matters, such as the Iraq War.

If you turn a blind eye to fare evasion, if you accustom people to getting away with minor crime, you are making it more likely that they will go on to commit more serious crimes. That is why we have so much disorder in London. It is a disgrace.

I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.

I think I'm basically a liberal Conservative - I believe in low tax, spirit of free enterprise, and in making sure that we as politicians create the framework for business to produce the dosh that we're going to need to pay for the poorest. And the longer I live, the more I think that we all have a duty to each other.

That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me.

When lorry drivers come up behind me and I'm cycling, innocently keeping to my side of the road, and they decide because they are so big, and their lorry is so powerful, and they just want to clear me out of the road, and they hoot aggressively, then I do see red a bit. I do.

I lead a life of blameless domesticity and always have done.

London is the most commercially important city in Europe, and it's the most populous city. It should be for the whole of the European continent what New York is to America. That's what it should be.

I want London to be the most cycle-friendly city on Earth, and I want more people to be happy and safe on bicycles.

The Remain campaign... I've never seen a more miserable offering. All they are saying is stay in and we'll do our best to make sure that Britain's Parliamentary independence isn't eroded faster than we can possibly imagine.

It would be a sad day if we British stopped being cynical, but you sometimes wonder whether we overdo it.

If we vote to Leave and take back control, all sorts of opportunities open up. Including doing new free trade deals around the world, restoring Britain's seat on all sorts of international bodies, restoring health to our democracy and belief to our democracy.

If I'd been on the Remain side I would have tried to have seen the best in Europe and tried to explain that. Instead, what they've done is endlessly try and talk up what they see as the weaknesses of Britain and they aren't there. That's a total mistake.

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

I am hoping very much to get re-elected but it is going to be a tough fight.

What I worry about is that people are losing confidence, losing energy, losing enthusiasm, and there's a real opportunity to get them into work.

I've always sort of thought that politics was a high and noble calling and a good thing to do.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.

One thing you have got to do politically is to identify the ties that bind society together and try to strengthen them.

I'm made up of immigrant stock. I went to a primary school in London. I grew up eating Spangles, why shouldn't I be as well placed to speak for Londoners as anyone else?

I'm not one of those people who believes in going endlessly around finger wagging and ticking people off for occasional colourful use of language.